JURIST - Paper Chase: Saturday, July 7, 2012

[JURIST] Lawyers for the state of Georgia argued Friday in court filings with the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website] that its immigration law is constitutional under the recent US Supreme Court [official website] ruling in Arizona v. United States [opinion, PDF; JURIST report]. The appeals court in March deferred ruling [JURIST report] on challenges to Georgia and Alabama's controversial immigration laws until after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Arizona's law, and the states were given until Friday to file new briefs consistent with that decision. Georgia argued in its filing [AP report] that the provision of its law being challenged is most comparable to the provision of the Arizona law that was upheld by the Supreme Court, which requires police officers to check the immigration status of those who are arrested and allows them to stop and arrest anyone whom they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. Alabama conceded in its filing that some of the provisions of its law are unconstitutional because they are similar to the ones struck down in Arizona v. United States but argued that some of its provisions should be upheld. The appeals court will now consider both oral arguments, which were held in March, and the new filings by the states and issue a ruling consistent with the Supreme Court's decision.

The Supreme Court's ruling in Arizona v. United States was the latest event in an ongoing power struggle between federal and state governments in dealing with the issue of illegal immigration. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer [official website] said [press release; JURIST report] she is happy with the Supreme Court's decision and that she is confident future enforcement of the law will not violate the Constitution. The US Department of Justice [official website] urged [JURIST report] the Supreme Court not to hear the case on appeal in November. Arizona had asked the Supreme Court [JURIST report] to weigh in on the constitutionality of the law in August after the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] upheld a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] against it.

[JURIST] The New York Fourth Appellate Division for the Supreme Court [official website] on Friday dismissed a challenge [opinion, PDF] to the state's year-old Marriage Equality Act (MEA) [text, PDF], ruling that closed-door meetings between gay rights advocates and state senators did not violate the state's Open Meetings Law (OML) [text]. This ruling overturned a decision by the Supreme Court of Livingston County last year, which allowed the lawsuit to proceed [JURIST report] after a motion by the defendants to dismiss. The law was challenged by New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms (NYCF) [advocacy website], which claimed that closed-door meetings between advocates of the MEA, and Senate Republicans violated the OML. NYCF first alleged that a meeting between New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg [official website] and Senate Republicans violated the OML because a senior lobbyist for NYCF and the executive director of the Torah Jews for Decency [advocacy website] were denied permission to address the senators at that meeting. NYCF also alleged that Governor Andrew Cuomo [official website] met with Senate Republicans privately in his home for a meeting that was not open to the public in violation of the OML. The appeals court, however, ruled that the meetings were not enough to violate the OML. It also ruled that even if the meetings had violated the OML, the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of showing "good cause" to warrant the court invalidating the MEA and all marriages performed under it because of such violations. NYCF Executive Director Jason McGuire said in a press release [text] that he is "disappointed by the decision" and will be meeting with lawyers to discuss what actions the group should take next.

Opponents of same-sex marriage have fought against laws permitting gay marriage throughout the US using many different grounds. Last month Preserve Marriage Washington [advocacy website] presented a referendum [JURIST report] with over 200,000 signatures to the Washington legislature, preventing a law permitting same-sex marriage from taking effect until state officials determine whether the proposed referendum qualifies for a public vote. A group in Maryland last month also obtained enough signatures [JURIST report] to challenge that state's law permitting gay marriage in a referendum. In 2008 a New York state court dismissed a challenge [JURIST report] to a decision by then-governor David Paterson to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages brought on grounds that recognizing the marriages conflicted with existing state law.

[JURIST] Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi on Thursday issued a decree appointing a fact-finding committee to investigate the deaths of protesters in last year's demonstrations. The committee is made up of 16 members [AP report] including judges, a state prosecutor, a general, a police commander and six representatives of victims' families. They are charged with reopening files related to the deaths of nearly 1,000 protesters in the uprising last year that led to the ousting of Hosni Mubarak [JURIST news archive]. Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] challenged whether the committee would have the power to investigate the actions of the Egyptian military with an HRW official stating, "[t]his committee could go some way toward pushing for accountability for excessive use of force ... but I don't see it as having the capacity to recommend punishment of military officers." The committee must report its findings to Morsi within two months.

Egypt's post-Mubarak political climate has been fractious. Last month, Amnesty International [advocacy website] urged [JURIST report] Morsi to end the pattern of human rights abuses committed by former president Mubarak and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) [Al Jazeera backgrounder]. Earlier last month an Egyptian court struck down [JURIST report] a government decree that gave the military broad power to arrest people. Also last month HRW expressed concern [JURIST report] that the Egyptian military's expansive power is a threat to human rights. Two weeks ago, the SCAF announced [JURIST report] that it would transfer power to Morsi by the end of June. Earlier in June Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court [official website] dissolved the Egyptian Parliament [JURIST report] after finding that one-third of its members were elected illegally. JURIST contributor Haider Ala Hamoudi recently opined [JURIST op-ed] that the Egyptian high court's decision to dissolve parliament may lead to a power imbalance between the three branches of government that a strong executive could exploit.

[JURIST] Lawmakers in Romania voted on Friday to impeach President Traian Basescu [official website, in Romanian] for overstepping the bounds of his authority by interfering in judicial and legislative affairs. The Romanian Parliament [official website] voted 256-114 for impeachment. Romanian voters will have the final say [AP report] as to whether Basescu will be removed from office in a referendum to be held later this month. Basescu has been president of Romania since 2004. In 2009 the Constitutional Court of Romania [official website, in Romanian] declared incumbent president Basescu winner of the country's disputed presidential election [JURIST report]. He has survived impeachment once before. Basescu was reinstated in 2007 after the high court certified results of a referendum in which 74 percent of voters rejected [JURIST reports] Basescu's impeachment.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta [BBC profile] has also recently been accused of overstepping his authority. The Constitutional Court of Romania last week accused Ponta and his leftist party, the Social Liberal Union (SLU), of attempting to seize control over the judiciary [JURIST report] system. The court announced that it has alerted the European authorities [Reuters report] of the situation. The prime minister had ignored last week's decision by the court which found that his opponent, Basescu, should represent the country at the European Council [official website] meeting in Brussel.